Pound Pup Legacy

An article from New Zealand suggesting child abuse prevention (family violence) should become an election issue  states today: 

a recently released report on child poverty focuses on the fact that 200,000 children in New Zealand live below the poverty line and are therefore at considerably elevated risk of neglect; and CYF has reported a recent rise in reporting of child abuse.

“It is encouraging that notifications have increased, as this appears to indicate a growing intolerance of child abuse and neglect within New Zealand communities, rather than an increase in the incidence of abuse.

“What to do with the children suffering from abuse and neglect is the important next step to take. Early intervention is crucial. Working intensively with high-risk families is the most successfully proven method of reducing the risk, and therefore the incidence, of child abuse. It is the Family Help Trust’s experience that families want to do better, but they need support to do this,” she said.

According to Annabel Taylor, [chair of the Family Help Trust, and a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury School of Social Work and Human Services.] the next step is to ask how much New Zealanders are prepared to invest in caring for the most vulnerable children.

“If the prevention of child abuse is to become an election issue, the focus needs to be on early intervention and prevention activities, not just on publicity and programmes to raise awareness.

“If we are to properly address this problem, at a political level, that is the part that needs to be taken seriously: how do we adequately resource programmes to help those families that are at greatest risk? If voters want to make a real difference, and save or improve the lives of the most vulnerable infants in our community, it is actual, practical early intervention that they must insist those auditioning for government must implement, not just awareness campaigns.  

“Early intervention into families at greatest risk of child abuse by professional and scientifically based social work services will improve the statistics that currently put New Zealand to shame. Voters looking at policies from various political parties should ask whether or not these policies will deliver such services,” she said.

"Child abuse prevention, an election issue", http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0808/S00165.htm

I think the very same questions need to be asked in America, where the prison population reflects just how much tax-payers are investing in state services created to "help" our communities.  Child safety is indeed a very critical issue, so where does new and improved intervention begin?  I believe a very good place to start is where members of shattered families are kept to be reformed:  our own state prisons.  [This would be in addition to school/home teaching initiatives being done my groups like NJ's Healthy Families Home Visiting program (http://www.healthyfamiliesnj.org/) ]

Radical reform in child placement and abuse prevention MUST take place, but they must be done simultaneously.  I believe this requires a humanitarian approach, one that fosters patience and emotional development, through various forms of education.  If I were to create an abuse-prevention program, I'd look into programs that already exist, and improve upon them, using the resources a state already has available for its people.  For instance, many states in the US have Prison Pup Programs, but do those programs include parenting classes and child-reunion opportunities?  I see this as a nursing/teaching opportunity, but then many know, I will always be partial to my own profession.

The bottom line is always very simple:  one has to question the motives of the election-time politicans before anyone asks tax payers, "are you willing to invest in this social-program's future?"  In others words, how many can afford to keep policy and practice the same and unchanged?